 A highly effective tool that I teach to parents is the Enforceable Statement, also known as Turning Your Words to Gold. If you are like most parents, you find yourself telling your child things like, “Sit down,” “Be Quiet,” “Hurry up,” or “Brush your teeth right now.” The problem with these statements is that you are telling them to do something that you cannot control. Children quickly learn to test, push our buttons, and even win battles. Every time we tell our child to do something that we cannot enforce, we give away some of our power and a lot of our credibility.
Using an enforceable statement is describing what I as the parent will or can do. An enforceable statement might sound like this:
Another way to think about the effectiveness of enforceable statements is that we are using words that help our child think about what is being communicated; we are using thinking words instead of fighting words. Some examples are:
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